


Cross Over

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV), Young Avengers
Genre: AU: TW/YA, Accidental dimension hopping, Considerable shenanigans, Crossover, F/M, Gen, Loki is an enigmatic mischief maker, M/M, Magic!Stiles, Rune Magic, Secret Relationship, Stiles and Billy are bros, Teddy Altman loves Teen Wolf, Wiccan is Stiles' favourite superhero
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-10 23:42:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/791532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So I shouldn’t be worried that there’s a dead twink in your bed?”</p>
<p>“I told you, he’s not dead. Just passed out! And no of course you shouldn’t worry! He’s just, um, passing through? Hopefully we’ll have him on his way again by tomorrow…. Next week at the latest.” </p>
<p>OR</p>
<p>The one in which Billy Kaplan accidentally hopped dimensions and ended up in a world where his boyfriend's all time favourite TV show <i>Teen Wolf</i> is real and his own life is a webcomic called <i>Young Avengers</i> made by some huge comic book company called Marvel. WTF.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A bad start

**Author's Note:**

> I spent MONTHS earlier this year scouring the internet for a Teen Wolf/Young Avengers crossover. Not finding one, I reluctantly realised I would have to write it myself. I'm sorry (I'm not sorry). I haven't finished writing yet so WIP warning, but it's probably no more than 5-6 chapters and ca 10-12k words. Expect updates on Fridays (ish).
> 
> Also: I figure the Teen Wolf universe is not quite our own (hello! Werewolves!) so I'm justified in making YA a webcomic there. Apologies if for some reason that bothers you.
> 
> Many thanks to the amazing [Khirsah](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Khirsah) for beta reading and cheerleading.
> 
> Caveat Emptor: Ahead may be puns, and this might get a bit meta/tongue in cheek.

Before his eyes were even open, Billy knew something was wrong. He was still seated cross-legged but instead of a soft pelt underneath him, he felt only hard wood – and maybe some gravel. His head hurt. Hurt more than a simple dislocation across town should cause. Heart pounding, he prepared himself to do a bit more magic, if necessary, and carefully opened one eye. Warm sunlight poured through a crack in a filthy, burnt wall lighting up the interior of an apparently abandoned house.  He shifted his head delicately from side to side, trying to ignore the flickers of light at the edge of his vision that were the first warning of a migraine coming on. Where the hell was he? His magic hadn’t gone that wrong in months.

Still moving achingly slowly, he placed both hands palm down on the dirty floor and began to push himself gently upwards. A board creaked. The sound cut through his brain like a hot knife through butter, melting his ability to think, and he dropped, rather inelegantly, back onto his ass on the bare wood floor.

Something growled. Billy looked up, adrenaline spike momentarily erasing the increasingly awful migraine that was clawing itself up his neck and taking root behind his eyes, and tensed when he saw a very tall, very muscular man staring at him from a doorway that had been empty moments earlier. Men who growled like wolves were almost always more dangerous than wild animals. Billy was young, but he’d known that for years. He tried to stand, but the magic backlash finally washed over him completely and he felt himself listing sideways, collapsing into a small heap on the floor. As his vision blacked out, he thought he heard a word in all the growling. It sounded like ‘Stiles!’

His last conscious thought before the darkness swallowed him up was _What’s a Stiles?_

*

“Dude! Why is there a dead kid on your floor? What happened?” Stiles hissed at Derek. Derek scowled back, eyebrows shifting aggressively. “Are you sure? I mean, he looks pretty dead...”

“Not dead,” Derek forced out between gritted teeth. “I can hear his heart beating.”

Stiles smiled to himself. Annoying Derek was always perilous, but months of cooperation had taught him that it was usually the only way to get him to share what he knew. “Okay then, what is a really-dead-looking-but-apparently-alive kid doing on your floor?”

“I don’t know, Stiles. He just... appeared.”

Stiles walked carefully towards the body on the floor at the far end of the room, trying not to make too much noise or trip over loose boards. Derek stayed in the doorway, obviously ill at ease. If Derek were a different sort of person, Stiles thought, he would be pacing and wringing his hands. As it was, he was totally still but somehow also vibrated with energy, clearly waiting for an attack. Stiles crouched beside the boy, reaching out tentatively to roll him over so his face was visible.

The boy's skin was a pasty grey-white and there were dark circles beneath his closed eyes. The late afternoon sunlight glinted on a small gold ring in his right ear, and his clothes were obviously expensive and very hipster-chic. Yet, for all his nice clothing and delicate features, his shoulders were broad, his arms corded with muscles; and a surprising number of shiny, white scars dotted his hands and forearms. Stiles whistled quietly, dude was hot. Stiles placed a hand on his shoulder and shook gently. “Hey. Hey. Kid. You okay? Can you hear me?”

The boy shivered, mumbled something unintelligible, slit open his eyes and winced at the sunlight striping his face. “Rrrmmggghhh,” he moaned, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Derek,” Stiles said, not looking up from the boy’s face, “come over here and block the light.” Derek slipped warily into the room, staying close to the wall until he stood before the cracked board. The room darkened further and the boy cracked his eyes open. And moaned. Again.

“Do you speak English?” Stiles began. The boy nodded. “Great. So, Derek says you just appeared. Are you a runaway?” The boy shook his head slightly. “Okay. This might sound crazy. Um, if it does? Just, I don’t know, assume you hallucinated this... Did you get here by magic?” The boy’s eyes flew open. “Okay, I think that’s a yes. This is going to get complicated. This sort of thing... well, it’s happened before. I mean, I don’t know if it’s me or Derek or the whole Beacon Hills is a hellmouth thing, but people turn up here sometimes. Well, a lot. So don’t worry. We have a procedure!” The boy made a noise – halfway between a sigh and a groan – and passed out again.

*

There were two people talking near him when Billy came to the second time. One voice he recognised as the younger guy who’d asked him about magic, the other was unfamiliar.

“So I _shouldn’t_ be worried that there’s a dead twink in your bed?” the unknown voice said with some scepticism.

The magic guy responded quickly, “I told you, he’s not dead. Just passed out! And no of course you shouldn’t worry! He’s just, um, passing through? Hopefully we’ll have him on his way again by tomorrow…. Next week at the latest.” There was a pause and some noises like cloth rubbing together. Passing out clearly had not helped Billy get rid of his migraine and he flinched at the  sharp rush of magic boy's words.

“Hey, I think he’s waking up! Danny, go outside and wait – I think he’s okay, but get ready to call Derek in case something goes wrong.”

The door creaked as it swung shut and the latch clicked before Billy felt grounded enough to start thinking about opening his eyes. He was no longer crumpled over on the hard wood floor, but laying on his back on a soft surface _the bed_ , he remembered. He tried to open his eyes and groaned aloud. U _gh magic hangovers!_

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” came the familiar voice again, this time closer and quieter. Billy opened an eye. The guy was sitting in a desk chair beside the bed, swinging slowly from side to side but watching his face intently. “Welcome back!”

“Ugh,” Billy squeaked out, “How long…?”

The boy fiddled with the drawstrings on his grey hoodie. He had short dark hair and pale brown eyes. Moles dotted his skin alongside a surprising number of scars. “About three hours. You were out for maybe thirty minutes at Derek’s place too. You okay now?”

Billy coughed. “Magic hangover. Could really use some water.”

“Water! Right, I can do water!” The boy jumped up and started rummaging in the piles of paper and books on the desk in the corner of the room for a water bottle. His motions were broad and clumsy, and Billy was completely unsurprised when he tripped over his own feet and almost faceplanted on the floor bringing  the water back to the bed.

Billy shifted himself delicately into a sitting position and took the bottle of water the boy was holding out to him. He sipped first then gulped, quickly finishing off the whole bottle. “Do you, um, need some more?” asked the boy.

“No, I think I’ll be okay for a bit.”

“Okay. Well, are you up for answering some questions? It’s probably the easiest way to get you back where you came from.”

Billy smiled. The water was already helping and his head was spinning less violently. “Yeah, okay. Um, you can have your friend come back in – I’m not going to try and hurt you or anything.”

The boy blushed slightly and quirked up one corner of his mouth. “You heard that, huh?” he said to Billy, who just smiled back. “Danny,” he called out, “come back in – he’s not dangerous.”

The door opened and a tall, olive skinned boy sauntered into the room. He had dark hair, dark eyes and broad, muscular shoulders. “That’s what you said about Miss Fitzgerald down the street and we all know how _that_ went.”

“Hey!” the first boy said. “How was I to know that Mermaids were even a thing! And that they could live on dry land!”

“I thought research was what you did, Stiles” Danny smirked as he pulled up a chair and casually threw an arm around the smaller guy’s shoulder. Billy kept his mouth shut as the first guy – _Stiles_ – just blushed and leaned in slightly towards the taller boy. _Oh_ , thought Billy, _his boyfriend_. Then, _Oh, Teddy!_ Watching the two strange boys smile at each other, clearly reliving some sort of in-joke or long-standing argument made Billy suddenly realise just how alone he was in this strange place. He drew in a ragged breath and smiled as Stiles, blushing slightly, reluctantly looked away from his boyfriend and tried to focus once again on Billy and his problems.

“Okay, um, do you have a name? I’m Stiles – this is Danny,” he said pointing to himself and his boyfriend.

“Hey,” said Danny with a blinding smile.

“Billy. Hi. So where am I?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute, but you’re not the first… traveller… to come through here, and all this usually goes better when I ask questions first before I answer yours. That okay?”

“Yeah?” He leaned back against the pillow, reclining slightly and causing a poster to crinkle behind him.  Stiles sat opposite him, fidgeting constantly, but keeping his eyes locked on Billy’s. Danny lounged beside him, left hand on Stiles’ right knee, apparently uncaring; but Billy could see how tightly his right hand gripped his phone. The knuckles were white.

“Okay, these might get a bit weird – just go with it.” Billy nodded. “So, first question: where are you from?”

Billy smiled, “New York City.”

“What country is that in?”

“The United States.”

“Of America?”

“Yes.” Billy wanted to roll his eyes, but he’d had enough experiences with the multiverse at this point that he figured the guy was probably right to ask.

“okay. Good. What year is it?”

“2013,” he said and immediately Stiles relaxed slightly.

“Not a time traveller then. That makes this easier. Um, who’s the president?”

“Obama.”

Stiles relaxed a little further then grinned. “Marvel or DC?”

Confused, Billy shot a look to Danny who just rolled his eyes. “Um. Do you mean Mar Vell? He’s dead though. I mean we thought he wasn’t and Ted… my boyfriend even met this guy once but it was just an imposter….” Billy trailed off, faced with a totally immobile Stiles and a Danny whose eyes were wide open and staring.

“Did you just tell me your boyfriend met Captain Mar Vell?” Stiles asked slowly, his whole body tensed.

“Well, no,” Stiles relaxed a bit, “I said he met the Skrull who thought he was Mar Vell.”

Stiles glanced between Billy and Danny whose eyes, if anything, were even wider. “I think we might have a problem here,” he said eventually. “What did you say your name was again?”

“Billy. Billy Kaplan.”

Danny started to laugh, but Stiles just buried his head in his hands with a muffled, “Oh shit.”


	2. Face. Palm.

Danny was still laughing when Stiles finally felt able to drop his hands. The boy— _Billy fucking Kaplan. What the fuck, man. Holy shit we’re all living in the fucking Marvel Multiverse!_ —stared at him, blinking rapidly and still looking a little zoned out. _Not too surprising after that sort of major dimension hopping, really_. Stiles sighed, pursed his lips, then spoke, slowly and clearly, “So… Billy… Just to be clear. You’re from New York?” Billy nodded. “You have a boyfriend named Ted?” Billy nodded. “And Captain Mar Vell and Skrulls exist in your world?” Billy nodded. “God. I don’t know whether I want you to tell me I’m right or wrong, but you wouldn’t happen to also, sometimes—like on weekends or evenings or, you know, when there are supervillains around—sometimes wear a red cape and go by the name of Wiccan?” Stiles’ voice squeaked slightly on the last word.

Billy’s eyes grew wide and his gaze flicked rapidly between Stiles and Danny. His pale face grew even paler. “How did you know that?” he asked breathily. “Who told you that?”

Stiles opened his mouth to respond, but stopped at a sharp knee squeeze from Danny who sat up a little straighter, cleared his throat slightly and gestured at the wall behind Billy. “Dude, you’re famous.”

Billy slid himself forward on the bed before twisting himself around to stare at the poster he’d been leaning against. It was a glossy print of a colourful drawing showing a good-looking young guy wearing a skin-tight black suit, a tattered red cape and silver bands around his forehead and wrists which were decorated with a spiral pattern. In blocky red writing above his head were the words ‘Billy Kaplan’, and ‘WICCAN’ was written bold and italicised diagonally across his legs. His hands were lost in pale blue clouds of light. The Billy on the bed and the Billy on the wall didn’t look exactly alike, but it was close enough to explain Danny’s laughter.

“Holy shit!” Billy swore after several moments of staring. “Where the fuck did you get that? Who’s making posters with my name on them? I need to stop this.” He yelped, words increasing in pitch and speed as he began to panic. “Shit! What if my parents…”

Stiles rolled himself forward and put a hand on Billy’s shoulder, “Hang on,” he said, “I don’t think they sell those where you live.”

“What do you mean they don’t sell them where I live!”

“I mean we’re not…” Stiles grimaced, trying to find the words. “This isn’t…” He shut his eyes. “You dimension hopped, dude. This isn’t you’re world.”

Billy’s face grew improbably paler. “But,” he said, voice quiet, “you know who I am… It must…” He trailed off, looking hopefully first at Stiles then at Danny.

Stiles glanced over at his boyfriend, but Danny just smiled slightly in Billy's direction, clearly wearing his friendly and sympathetic mask. Stiles rubbed his left hand over his eyes before saying, “Of course I know who you are, Billy. You’re a… In _this world_ , you’re a superhero.” Billy smiled slightly, shoulders relaxing, and looked ready to say something, but Stiles continued, “A _fictional_ superhero. In comic books.”

“Comic books?” Billy asked, glancing again towards Danny as if he would answer differently.

“Comic books,” Stiles responded, trying to keep the rising excitement out of his voice. “Well, actually, in your case it’s webcomics – you see, Marvel (that’s one of the big superhero comic book houses) is doing this thing where they want to get into the youth market and tweet and tumblr and all that so your comic – it’s called _Young Avengers_ , FYI – is a webcomic.”

“A webcomic?” Billy asked, squeaking slightly.

“Seriously, man, I know it doesn’t sound that impressive,” Stiles gushed, “but it’s awesome – they only update it like twice a week and the launch was huge….” Danny caught his eye and shook his head slightly, flicking his eyes in Billy’s direction.

Billy had pulled his knees to his chest and was breathing rapidly. He stared blankly at the bedspread.

“If it helps,” tried Stiles, “you’re totally my favourite superhero.” Danny groaned, but Billy's eyes were totally unfocussed and his mind was a million universes away.

*

“…so who fights the supervillains then?” asked Billy.

Stiles didn’t turn around, eyes glued to his laptop and fingers clicking the mouse restlessly. “There aren’t really supervillains. I mean, yeah there are bad guys and some of them are kind of supernatural but… Oh here it is!” He shoved his laptop at Billy who managed to catch it before it tumbled to the ground between them.

Billy stared and clicked and stared some more. It was nothing more than a few simple lines, some bright colours, a lot of pixels, but somehow this was him. And Teddy. And Loki. None of the drawings was quite perfect but, like the Billy in the poster on Stiles' wall, each of them was completely identifiable. Billy's eyes caught on the drawings of Teddy and he choked up a little seeing the cartoon version of his boyfriend always resting a hand on someone’s shoulder or squeezing an arm. _Using his body to show how much he cares when words won't do it_. Billy felt a tug under his breastbone as he looked at a panel of him and Teddy, arms slung casually around each other’s waists. The garish colours of the comic, the flashing ads along its border, all made clear just how far away from Teddy he was right now. _How could this happen?_ He asked himself. _What did I do?_

Billy looked up at Stiles who was watching him expectantly. “So,” Stiles asked, “is it really like that?”

Billy glanced back at the screen. “Yeah, pretty close. I mean, none of us looks quite right, but we’re all recognisable I guess.”

“What about the plots? The villains?”

“Oh, um.” Billy had been so overwhelmed by the drawings he hadn’t thought to read the text bubbles surrounding them. He squinted a bit and read the talk bubbles in the comic on the screen.

_Billy: “I know it’s not the end of the world, but it would be nice if he got a plot of his own, let alone a love interest!!”_

_Teddy: “At least this show has gay characters, B. Just sit down and watch. We don’t get a lot of quiet nights like this and my DVR is full.”_

_Loki: ??_

_Billy: “Don’t even say that, T. You know something will happen! I’m just saying. If they want to give us gay characters they should let them kiss the same as they let the straights.”_

_Teddy: “Well I like it.”_

_Loki: !!_

Billy read and re-read the last two panels, gulping air. “Wh…when exactly was this published?” he asked, gesturing vaguely at the screen.

Stiles looked over his shoulder. “Oh, that’s the latest. It just got posted this morning. Why? Ring any bells?”

“That… Um… We… That was last night.”

Stiles stared at him. “What, word for word?” Billy just nodded. “What about the others?”

Billy clicked the back button and read a bit, then clicked and read again. When he looked up again a few minutes later, Stiles was fidgeting with a marker pen, drawing little lines all over a tattered sheet of paper. He’d been sketching and writing and chewing on his pens since Danny left, saying he was going to let the others know “that the dead twink was okay”.

“Um, Stiles?” interrupted Billy, “the others are all real too – the, uh, timeline is a little weird, but it all happened in the right order.”

“That’s so cool!” Stiles exclaimed. “I mean, wow! Superheroes are real, man! And Dr. Doom and Magneto and all those awesome villains!” He stopped suddenly, catching the grimace on Billy’s face. “Oh, um, maybe not so awesome if you have to fight them. I get that. I mean, I’m still pissed at how Disney lied to me about mermaids!”

“Mermaids?” Billy asked, a little lost between the deeply unsettling webcomic and Stiles’ endless stream of words.

“Ugh, man, mermaids are awful. They have these sharp scales and these teeth – I mean at first they look human, but then. Boom! Lantern fish on legs. Ugly, dude. And vicious. I mean you gotta see what…” Billy just watched as Stiles started tugging up his shirt, revealing a flat stomach dusted with brown hair sporting a number of strange-shaped scars.

“Whoa, what happened to you?” Billy asked, distracted. _By the scars, Billy. Just look at the scars_.

Stiles gestured at a jagged crescent-shaped mark a bit pinker than the others. “So, this was the mermaid. Hella vicious, like I said. Oh and this,” he pointed at a slight furrow on his side, “was a bullet – some hunter asshole took a pot-shot at Isaac and I caught the edge of it. This one,” he pointed at four parallel lines which seemed to extend under his shirt up his chest, “was really shitty. Those claws hurt like a mother!”

Billy waved a bit to stem the flow of words. “Mermaids?” he asked. “And hunters and claws? Are you sure you don’t have supervillains? I mean, what the hell is going on here in… Wait, you never said, where are we?”

Stiles dropped his shirts and began waving his hands in the air to punctuate his answer. “Beacon Hills, dude. And we’re not really sure what’s going on, but we think it’s because our pack is pretty new, all the supes are, you know, testing the borders. Derek is doing his best, and now that we’ve got Danny on board we don’t just need to rely on claws and teeth…”

“Claws and teeth?” Billy prompted.

“Oh, um,” Stiles looked a bit shifty and glanced at the open window, “I really shouldn’t tell you. I mean, I normally don’t tell people. But you’re totally cool with the whole _secret identity thing_ and it’s not like you’re from around here anyway so, um. Werewolves, dude. Most of my posse – my pack - are werewolves.”

Billy just stared as Stiles babbled on, trying to convince him, telling him stories. Something was oddly familiar about the stories Stiles was telling. It reminded him of Teddy for some reason, and of the webcomic. Of Teddy asking him to come back to the sofa, to just sit down and watch, to appreciate the campy fun even… _Oh shit._

“Oh shit!” Billy swore. “Werewolves! You’re Stiles!” Stiles just stared, mouth hanging open. “Your best friend is Scott!” Stiles nodded. “And Derek. That’s the hot alpha, right?” Stiles nodded. “No flipping way! Teddy is going to die with jealousy! You’re his favourite TV show – _Teen Wolf_. That’s what we were watching in the webcomic!”


	3. #Fail

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay - I was out of town and phone posting just wasn't happening.

For once in his life, Stiles had nothing to say. He was just going to be silent and stare at Billy until the world ended, or his dad came home. Whichever.

Well, maybe that wasn’t true. Stiles’ mouth and Stiles’ brain never really saw eye to eye _or mouth to brain, heh!_ “What?” he sputtered. “ _Teen Wolf_? Someone actually made a TV show called _Teen Wolf_? And we’re in it? Who am I? Is it all _Grr! Rawr!_ Bloody violence? Or is it a high school noir—you know, like _Brick_ ,but with werewolf detectives? _Brick_ is a fucking awesome film, bee tee dubs – do you have Joseph Gordon-Levitt in your universe? Because wow. Hot. Or is the show more ‘Woe is me, angst is my life’? Do we get to fight? Am I hot?”

Billy slouched on the bed, not meeting Stiles' eyes. Faced with a lack of interruptions, Stiles’s questions dribble to a halt. In the silence that followed, Billy's response, though quiet, sounded hard-edged and clear. “It’s kind of Teddy’s thing. I don’t really watch it.” He paused, then added, “It’s been on the air a couple of years. It’s kind of teen romance and adventure – lots of, um.” Stiles watched Billy blush, colour creeping up his neck and into his pale cheeks. “Lots of hot shirtless guys running around in the woods.”

He glanced over, meeting Stiles’ eyes, but Stiles refused to be embarrassed. “Hot shirtless guys running around in the woods is pretty true to life,” he said instead. “Usually not me though. Oh god! Is TV me hotter than real me?”

Billy snorted, crinkling up his nose a little bit then answered, “You look similar, but not quite the same. Not as much as the comics, you know. He’s maybe a little less…”

Stiles smirked as he watched Billy searching for a word that wouldn’t be insulting. “Spazzy? Dorky? Clumsy?”

“Butch?” Billy offered instead. “I mean, he’s a bit thinner and, maybe, prettier? He doesn’t have all the,” he waved at Stiles’ torso, “scars.”

“Pfft! My scars are totally pretty! No one’s ever called me butch before – it’s ’cause you haven’t met the wolves yet. I’m like a wilting violet next to those dudes! But yeah, you too – you don’t look as young as the comic makes you, and,” he used the marker pen he’d been chewing on to point at Billy’s arms, “the scars really show how hard the whole superhero business must be.”

Billy sighed. “It is hard, I guess, but I like it. I mean, I’ve never really known any other life. And I never would have met Teddy otherwise. And he’s kinda, well.” Billy gulped for air again, feeling panic rising up as he thought about his boyfriend trapped in the square of the webcomic still facing him on Stiles’ laptop. “He’s got my back. Always. And I have his. Well, had. You know, when we were in the same universe.”

He blinked hard several times and Stiles wasn’t sure whether to look away or to go over and try to comfort him. Eventually, the Stilinski mothering gene took over and he settled himself against Billy and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “Hey,” he said quietly, “we’ll get you back home.” Billy sniffed. “If you got _here_ , you should be able to get _back_. And I can help, I’m magic too – well, a little. Not like you, but I can, you know, do some research or maybe boost your powers. We’ll get you back, Billy. You heard what I said to Danny: later today or by the end of the week at the longest. I never lie to Danny. Not after the mermaid,” he added with a smile.

Billy forced a small smile in return and shook himself delicately as if he were deliberately pulling himself back together. He shrugged off Stiles’ arm and scooted to the edge of the bed. “Well,” he said, with the same kind of forced cheeriness  Stiles' grade school music teacher had used to brazen out the post-lunch sugar rush with 40 screaming nine year olds, “I can’t do magic on an empty stomach. What have you got in the house? I’ll help make dinner.”

*

Billy settled himself carefully in a clear patch on the faded carpet in the middle of Stiles’ room. His legs were crossed and his hands rested on his knees. Eyes shut, he breathed in and out in a steady rhythm, centring himself and feeling for the glowing scintillation under his breastbone. Stiles leaned against the wall opposite him, and the small cracking noises he made as he chewed absently on the cover of a marker pen were comforting rather than distracting. Before Billy had begun to center himself, he’d watched, fascinated, as Stiles had slowly drawn a series of blocky symbols and runes up and down his arm in purple ink.

“So your magic is rune-based? Like in Asgard?”

“Well,” Stiles hedged, “Deaton doesn’t really use things like this… I found it in a book, and on a few websites, some of which—guaranteed!—were full of crap. I mean, they talked about fairy dust and we all know that fairies don’t make that shit at all. More like troll dust, you know? Anyhow, no, it’s not a common thing, I think, but, I mean, maybe you’ve noticed I can have some trouble….”

“Focussing?” Billy interrupted.

Stiles’ cheeks flushed a light pink and he scratched the back of head with the base of the marker pen. “Yeah, that. Anyhow, drawing the runes gets my head on task and kinda gives me a… I don’t know, a direction, maybe? For the spark, I mean.”

Billy had nodded without offering much of a reply. Clearly, magic worked differently here. Or maybe it was just Stiles.

Now, seated and focussing on his own magic, he pushed it towards Stiles, feeling for a new source of power—the “spark” he kept bringing up. “ **I want to borrow Stiles’ magic. I want to borrow Stiles’ magic. I want to borrow Stiles’ magic….** ”

Through his extended senses, Billy felt Stiles’ presence in the room like sheet on a washing line, billowing in the wind and cracking with static electricity. Billy shifted position, cupping his palms upwards on his knees. Eyes open, now, he watched as blue light pooled in his hands before flowing sluggishly towards Stiles. He knew this should be easy. He should be able to wrap Stiles up in his own magic and leach off some of the wild magic sparking through him; but simply pushing magic out towards him to investigate left Billy winded. His arms and legs shook and he felt sweat dripping down the back of his neck.

When spots began swimming in the corners of his eyes, Billy abruptly pulled his magic—still only just at the edges of Stiles’ presence—back into himself. He gasped for breath for several moments before leaning back and slumping awkwardly onto the floor.

“Man, you okay? Did I hurt you? Did I do something wrong?” Stiles babbled as he dropped down next to where Billy lay, sprawled and panting.

Billy smiled up at him, aiming for reassuring. But Stiles just stared back, teeth worrying his lower lip. “Not you,” he finally breathed. “Me. Used up…reserves….”

“Dude. I know how that feels. Come on, let’s get you into bed. We can try again tomorrow. Nothing like a good night’s sleep to refresh the magic reservoirs. I mean, you should have seen me after this one time with these goblins—well, not actually goblins. I never really figured out what they were, but they had these little red eyes and…” Stiles kept up a constant stream of asides and tangents as he shifted Billy’s arm around his shoulders and haltingly walk-dragged him to the bed. “Seriously, man, don’t worry about it. Just take the bed. I’ve got a sleeping bag, it’ll be like camp.”

Billy grumbled, trying to refuse, but Stiles just kept talking. “No really! Don’t be like that. If you’re still here tomorrow, maybe we can swap. But the sheets are clean—I just changed them, like, three days ago, and you look like you need a mattress now.”

Billy’s body slid easily into the messy bed. The borrowed teeshirt and sweats he had on were soft and the pillow seemed to wrap its arms around him. He stopped trying to argue and let sleep pull him under.

*

Stiles glanced over at Billy—who, despite still wearing his thrown together PJs, looked immensely powerful in his shroud of pale blue, flickering light—before returning his eyes to the shimmering space in the centre of his bedroom. A good night’s sleep and a solid Stilinski Special Breakfast (with turkey bacon, because, if Stiles’ dad— _manifestly the most awesome person alive_ —had to suffer, then so did everyone else) later and Billy’s mojo had been up to opening a passage back to his own corner of the multiverse.

_The multiverse, dude! Fucking-A!_ That was never going to get old.

But the passage didn’t look like it was working right. Billy just kept muttering, sending repeated blasts of blue in its direction; but Stiles saw no changes to the tear in the air or to the bright white runes flashing at its centre which had appeared moments after Billy’s first incantation ended.

Billy had described the passage as a sort of neat window through space, time and multiple dimensions; but Stiles was facing something that looked more like a jagged rip torn down the centre of his room. Looking directly at it was a bit like looking at one of those magic pictures, except that the flashing white, grey and black spots singularly failed to resolve into a pirate ship. Much clearer were the runes floating directly in front of the torn space. They were blocky and blazing white, glowing outwards but casting shadows on the ugly opening behind them; and they appeared to be scrawled in the runic equivalent of Comic Sans. Stiles didn’t know what annoyed him more, that he couldn’t read all of the runes or that someone— _and who the hell was that evil??_ —would actually choose Comic Sans for their magic inscriptions.

“What’s it say?” Billy asked, finally dropping his arms. “You know runes, right?”

Stiles shrugged, not taking his eyes off the torn space. “I’m not sure, dude. I mean, I only use some runes and most of those were cribbed from Nordic God forums on the internet—and you have to be really careful with the Norse people. Most of them are just family tree crazies, but, dude, this one time I ended up having a four hour flame war with a white nationalist—”

“The runes?” Billy interrupted, voice a bit sharp.

“Sorry. Um…” Stiles squinted, moving marginally closer. “The big ones on top say something like ‘Passage. In’… um… ‘in this…place?’ Yeah! ‘Passage in this place…available never…. Location…of caster?’ Oh my god!” Stiles smacked a palm to his forehead.

“What?”

“Dude. ‘This passage is not available in your current location.’ It’s like YouTube— you’ve been fucking geoblocked!” Stiles laughed loudly before catching Billy’s clearly unimpressed expression and calming himself down.

“Stiles, what’s the other line say?”

Stiles looked away from the runes and over at Billy. “That’s the hard one – I don’t know a couple of the runes. They’re…weird. I’ll have to look into it, but I think it says something like ‘Strange rune Closed. Passage Closed. Open…eye? Open strange rune—same one, dude, see?—Open passage.’ It looks like directions, but I can’t really tell what we can do with it. I’m gonna have to look it up – can you, like, do a printscreen or something?” Billy’s lips thinned and Stiles held up his hands. “Okay, okay, just hold it open another second and I’ll write it all down.”

Stiles transcribed the message on a bit of scrap paper, checking twice to make sure he had all the runes copied correctly before he let Billy collapse the passage. In the corner of his eye, he watched Billy droop backwards onto the bed and list slowly onto his right side, eyes falling shut.

“That’s right,” Stiles whispered, “sleep it off, dude, and I’ll get my research on.”


End file.
